I understand this new material TwinTex is being used by Esquif to make a whitewater canoe, and in spring will be applied to a 16’2" touring tandem canoe.
http://www.esquif.com/en/index.php
It sounds like Twintex is a sort of polyethelyene bonded to fabric - as though the poly is a resin in what would otherwise be fibreglass.
I know poly is very impact and abrasion resistant, so I am sure this laminate is very tough. The listed weights are a huge improvement on Royalex. I have heard many good things about Esquif, so I am confident they will put out a good product.
I was wondering if anyone knew about repairbility (as poly traditionally doesn’t like to stick to glues/resins). I read recently that outfitting was best done at the factory.
Looking forward to trying these new boats.
I been following it also
I read Twin tex cannot be repaired “at home”. The canoe must be shipped back to the factory for any repair.
I am sure once it gets out in production someone will come up with some workarounds. 3M makes some industrial adhesives that will stick to poly.
Esquif
I am looking at a used one. I e-mailed Esquif, and asked them about repair ability. Thus far, no response. I am not likely to buy one until they are willing to come clean on this question. I have demo-ed the boat, and I like it.
Seems tough so far
A lot of guys have been following this stuff on cboats.net since it came out and there has been nothing but rave reviews so far on the durability of the stuff. There has been issues with bonding outfitting into the hull, but noone has had any hull failures that needed repairing.
Repairs
From what I read repairs to twintex are not easily done.
So what? Neither are repairs to Royalex or polyethelene.
IMO the durability of poly with the weight and stiffness of composit is hard to beat.
Tommy
Twintex
is also called 'armerlite' and 'corelite' in Europe and is a layered linear PP with a fabric inbetween (whatever you want: glass, S-glass, kevlar, carbon,..). Production process for canoes seems pretty similar to RX.
The material has been widely used in formula one racecars for years. It is hot weldable like the kayaks made out of PP.
That is not the usual DIY repair but doable.
Although until now there is to my knowledge no Zephyr in need of hull repair....
They had some bonding difficulties with D-rings in their first Zephyrs but that is solved by now. And Esquif doesn't recomend DIY outfitting at all-for the same reasons.
Robson in Germany is also making a WW OC1 out of that stuff with good results. This link http://www.thinklite.de/armerlite.html shows an arrow test with armerlite and carbon fibre for comparisson. They recently started a 16ft tandem (pretty similar to the MR explorer...).
If the new Esquif tandem boat is taken well by the market (and there is little doubt it will), Esquif will eventually switch all their RX hulls to Twintex. If you want one of the new Mistrals: good luck, I heared the first few production month are already sold out through pre orders.
Maybe, Twintex is the answer to all the disadvantages of RX-who knows. At least, PE is a lot more environmental friendly during production than Vinyl. And the stuff is unbelievable light. I'll sure give it a try.
For once, a Canadian canoe manufacturer seems well ahead of the competion down south. I'm sure, it won't take long until some holding corporation reaches out to them as well.....
Maybe they can resist.
Maybe they can resist?
Hope So!
Makes me want to cry when I think of what’s happened to Mad River and Dagger Canoe.
and Bell
and Oldtown, and …who really knows-(who bought Mohawk??)?
right
and hey, as light as that stuff is consider the repairs you won’t be needing to do on your back (which are way harder than fixing a split roylex hull)
John
Just curious
I recognize everything is a trade-off, and this one seems worth it. However, it is a lot more money than regular poly, and Royalex is pretty easy to repair with epoxy. I suppose if it is lighter, and unlikely to get damaged, and can then be plastic welded, it might be the best material to date.
It is nice to hear that it isn’t as environmentally damaging as royalex, too.
Twin-Tex
My mistral actually started delaminating from the Balsa-Floor